Latch
by withered
Summary: Ichigo chases the things she's left behind like breadcrumbs, and he follows them round and round until he feels like he's circling a drain.


For anon who requested "Ichiruki - things you said when you thought I was sleeping", title of the fic from Disclourse ft Sam Smith's song of the same title.

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Latch

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When Ichigo loses his powers, he can't see Rukia, but he finds pieces of her that she's left behind: Her doodles on random surfaces; her little notes and reminders for him; the wrappers for her favourite candy bars; the receipts of all the random shit she's made him buy for her; the ribbon she got woven into her hair once by some girl from their class; the Chappy dolls she kept in his closet; the butterfly clip he'd gotten her at a market in town.

They're like breadcrumbs, and he follows them round and round until he feels like he's circling a drain.

He feels disconnected; untethered.

He chased shadows of his life as a Substitute as if it'll bring her back, and it won't. It can't. Because right now he's human, he's normal. Or at least he's pretending to be.

Ichigo has fought monsters and saved souls and protected people. If he could do all that as who he is now, he wouldn't mind being human. But it's not, and he does.

Because humans and Shinigami can't be friends. And humans, normal humans, can't see Death Gods, and Ichigo as a normal human, can't see Rukia. If she's even around to see him at all.

It's a bitter thought, he knows because of all the things Ichigo does know with a certainty it's that Rukia is there. He knows she is.

She shuts his window at night. She switches the lamp off when he finally passes out. She tucks him in when he does. She sets a car alarm off in the mornings when he doesn't want to get out of bed. She leaves him juice boxes when he's spent too long staring at the wall. She plays her awful music when his room is too quiet.

He thinks that she's mocking him a little, teasing him that she can see him but he can't see her.

But the fact is this: Rukia will always save him, over and over again, no matter what it takes. Whether it's a sword through the chest or turning the light on to wake him from a nightmare.

And much as it comforts him to know that she's there, the thought of it burns him up too; she shouldn't be wasting her life taking care of him - saving him. Rukia deserves better than who Ichigo is right now.

It takes a few weeks of feeling nothing, and being nothing; of taking up space and pretending it's enough when he finally decided to _deserve it._

She probably wouldn't approve of his methods.

If she's watching right now, though he doesn't think she is, Rukia would probably call him an idiot but, he thinks with a wary smirk, at least soon he'll be able to hear it for himself.

It takes a few days after his training with the vizards before he hears her, and it takes everything in him not to react, to give himself away. He's not strong enough yet. He can't…he can't see her, can't risk Rukia stopping him from reaching her.

But her voice alone is enough to make his body sag in relief - like he'd been tense for too long, on the precipice of an exhale that she holds in her body.

And when she says, unrepentant, frank. Like she says it all the time. Like she means it every time, "I miss you." Ichigo stops breathing entirely.

Then, Rukia sighs, her voice going rough; strained, "I shouldn't. You have a life. A good one. A normal one. You aren't managing okay right now, but it's okay…it's an adjustment. Being here with you, helping you along is me…helping with that adjustment, and maybe giving me closure of my own?" He thinks he hears her swallow, and Ichigo tries his damnest not to turn around, to give himself away that he doesn't know that she's there. That he can hear her.

Then, she says, "I'm used to saying goodbye, and I keep trying to go home. But I always end up here with you. I wonder why that is. I wonder if you'll tell me." And then, there's a lightness to her tone, a humor that's bittersweet.

For a while, there's nothing more, and Ichigo's leaving crescent shaped indentations in his palm, his lip caught between his teeth to stop the words from spilling _notyetnotyetnotyet_ warring with a thrum of adrenaline that says _she's gone she's gone she's gone_.

But her next words come, barely a whisper in the night he almost doesn't catch; that snares his heart and cradles it, fragile and precious and _hers always hers_, "I feel like I've known you for a lifetime, like I've known you in every lifetime. Isn't that awful? I know you, but I never get to keep you." Before with a chuckle that sounds like a sob, Rukia teases, "Maybe in the next life, ne?"

_This life,_ Ichigo insists to the ghost of her, with eyes shut tight and a hope that she'll hear him, that she won't give up on him. _I'll see you again in this life, Rukia. I'll come find you. And every life after that. However many it takes. Just wait. Just wait. I'll come find you._


End file.
